100 books like Bi

James Baldwin is one of my favorite authors, and this book is a short, masterful look at the mechanisms behind queer shame. Two lovers, David and Giovanni, hide in a darkened room in self-imposed exile in Paris until the narrator’s sense of shame breaks their love trance.

David, an American who is engaged to a woman, cannot bear to continue his gay affair and so leaves Giovanni, prompting a confrontation with a changed reality and a tragic reckoning with the guillotine. 

For academic perspectives on bisexuality, this book is a great resource. Because many books on bisexuality are centred in or around North America this is a welcome addition. It is the first to bring together academic research on bisexual people from around Europe. It also won the Bisexual Book Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 (if you’re looking for more bi books the annual Bi book awards by the Bi Writers Association is always a good place to search!). 

The book includes research from different disciplines, showcasing the many ways that scholars have approached bi+ issues. It provides fascinating insights that are a great stepping stone for venturing deeper into the topic. 

Textbooks can be expensive, and many academic articles are locked behind pay-walls, so the authors made sure that there’s an open access version of the textbook (click the direct link below).

If you’re a bi history nerd like me, you’re going to love this insight into some of the early thoughts on bisexuality by sex researcher Havelock Ellis. Already in the late 1800s, Ellis - who was in an open relationship, and whose wife was bisexual - did research with bisexual people. 

His writing shows us that bisexuality isn’t trendy or new, that the stereotypes we battle today were already being criticised over a century ago, and that some people had positive ideas about bisexuality. For example, Ellis attributed the success of great leaders and artists to their bisexuality. He credits this to the “innately democratic attitude” of bisexual people to see beyond social class. Ellis a key figure in bi history who often gets missed, but his work can give a real sense of connectedness with our past. 

His books can be hard to find in print, but Project Gutenberg… show more.

If it’s personal accounts and many different voices you are looking for, The Bi-ble: Vol. 2 is perfect. It includes essays by various bisexual people, giving brief and poignant insights into their lives. 

This easy-to-read collection is a good example of the long tradition of anthologies in bi+ literature. Some stories are deeply relatable, others challenge you to look beyond your own experiences. It helped me to realise that while there is a commonality between the experiences of bisexual people, there are important individual differences that we need to keep in mind. No one person can speak for the entire bi community, so this book lets many people have their own voice.

In her groundbreaking Gender Trouble, Judith Butler develops the idea that we today call gender fluidity. Butler knows queer life intimately, and Gender Trouble speaks to much of the difficulty queer people, myself included, face in the world. It is thus not only brilliant but also generous and caring.

Butler set the stage for a philosophical problem I address in my book, namely that her type of position cannot fully explain (philosophically) why some people identify as gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual – just as they cannot explain why it’s existentially important for some trans people to transition.

Yuknavitch's prose is less a narrative and more a visceral experience. Reading it is like being caught in a riptide—disorienting, intense, and ultimately exhilarating. Her exploration of grief, sexuality, and survival doesn’t just skim the surface; it dives deep into the murky waters of human existence.

The raw honesty of her writing is both brutal and beautiful, making you feel like you’ve been handed the author’s very soul—scuffed, scarred, and utterly captivating.

Shatter the Sky is a quick-read YA high fantasy. It’s the story of Maren, who wants to live an ordinary life with her girlfriend, Kaia. When Kaia is kidnapped, Maren decides to apprentice herself to the Aromatory—the emperor’s mysterious dragon tamer—as a first step in her rescue plan. 

Shatter the Sky features a number of diverse characters and a sapphic romance and has been highly praised for breaking ground in the YA fantasy realm. I particularly enjoyed the Aromatory, the new take on dragons, and a main character who begins by viewing herself as unimportant but progresses to accepting her power and recognizing her value. Maren’s story continues—with ramped-up stakes, more dragons, and a complicated political plot in the meatier second book in this duology—Storm the Earth.

This book is probably the single most praised underground gay novel of my generation, and deservedly so. It’s so many things—beautiful writing, an old west setting in all its ugliness and adventure and hope, and a highly original narrative voice in the bisexual native orphan, Shed, who is being raised in a bordello. All the characters are well-drawn and as odd as the narrator, and the erotic journey, if I can call it that, is one of the most original, thought-provoking, and beautiful expressions of the possibilities of queer I’ve ever encountered. Spanbauer has helped me to write more skillfully about class and race and sexuality and how they are everywhere and how they can warp—and sometimes, oftentimes—set people free. 

Flora Calhoun—sixteen-year-old, self-appointed sleuth—is hot on the trail of a series of brutal attacks on young women. Ostracized by the in-crowd at her school for her unruly tongue (and for the secrets she uncovers about everyone)—reprimanded by those who love her for putting herself (and them) in constant danger—she ploughs determinedly ahead into increasingly dark and perilous territory. You’re Next is a quintessential YA book—full of the angst, the parental problems, and the acute social commentary of its snarky young protagonist. But does it dwell on the fact that Flora is bisexual? Not for a moment. It seems that in the world of contemporary YA literature we have finally reached the point at which that aspect of Flora’s life is no biggie. Amen.

As a reader, I adore Alexis Hall. As a writer, his pitch-perfect prose and wonderful characters give me a bad case of Holy-Crap-I-Could-Never-Write-This-Well. Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake straddles the line between Women’s Fiction and Romance. Yes, there’s a happy ever after, but the story is about more than the romantic relationship. Rosaline truly goes through a period of growth and healing, with a focus on her versus the couple that is reminiscent of Women’s Fic. She’s a single mother and a baker on a show inspired by The Great British Bake-off. A racially and sexually diverse cast of characters entertain and sometimes challenge you to think differently as Hall deftly maneuvers everyone to their happy place.